Now the ministry awakens to respond

Dr Gabrielle Hosein

I was both exasperated and relieved to see the Ministry of Education’s media release of June 16.

Titled, No Change in the Health and Family Life Education Curriculum, the release cautioned against “unsubstantiated allegations” that parental consent for student participation in the National Learning Assessment (TTNLA) also authorised medical procedures to be carried out on students.

It described these claims as “completely false,” inciting “unwarranted panic,” was “ill-conceived,” “spurious” and “condemned in the strongest of terms.”

I was exasperated because this problem was in the making for at least a year while the ministry refused to acknowledge or engage consistent warnings, advocacy and advice from international organisations, adolescent health services providers, its own technical experts and researchers.

I wrote at least seven columns in language so strong that I feared it would disgruntle faith-based organisations and the ministry, with the first of those columns, on March 30, 2022, literally headlined: Tell adolescents the truth.

That and subsequent columns were a worried response to falsehoods about the Health and Family Life Education curricula being propagated by religious leaders of different kinds.

Such falsehoods have now morphed and spread to the TTNLA and have further expanded to hysteria about the UN and wildly confused conclusions about comprehensive sexuality education (which is not part of any ministry curricula in TT).

A wildfire of rumours, unfounded statements and outright lies have convinced otherwise rational people that the HFLE curriculum is somehow going to make their children become transgendered, lesbian or gay, or somehow incite them to have sex.

There is nothing further from the truth.

Amid all this, the ministry sat in stony silence, unwilling either to explain or defend its own already accepted curricula as well as minor revisions that had been made to include gender-based violence (GBV) prevention. Even though tens of thousands marched against the horrors of violence against women in 2021, many with placards that called for children to be taught about GBV prevention in schools.

Instead, leadership failure let fear-mongering get the upper hand.

Meanwhile, overwhelming scholarship and data on TT, whether on child sexual abuse, family violence, early sexual initiation, coerced/unwanted sex, adolescent pregnancy or school bullying and fighting, suggested that the most vulnerable of boys and girls in primary and secondary schools are in desperate need of access to trained educators and standardised curricula that could help them to protect themselves and each other, and transform their generation’s social norms to address these very issues.

The Ministry of Education seemed not to care, or rather to have been politicised by a greater desire, to keep religious voting blocs on friendly terms, even if this meant letting erroneous claims become more dangerous and powerful. Such complicity therefore let all the “unsubstantiated allegations” determine state policy.

If it was on the ground and understood how difficult it is to counter fears and lies once established in people’s minds, the ministry would know that one press release about the HFLE curricula and learning assessment isn’t enough. It’s like throwing a bucket at flooding in Barrackpore.

So why was I relieved?

Surely, it is finally clear that communication with the public and responsible leadership is necessary.

First, the MoE must educate about the HFLE curricula in clear and visual terms, given that most people get their information from TikTok and YouTube. It needs to highlight what is in the curricula, the kinds of adolescent vulnerability the curricula aim to address, and the data that show the prevalence of such vulnerabilities, thus providing justification for the content and learning objectives.

It needs to respond to myths with facts by showing how the curricula do not and never did include the kinds of material causing unwarranted panic. It needs to explain that HFLE has been taught in TT for a very long time without calamity, and how current revisions seek to improve its approach to child protection through GBV prevention.

It needs to affirm that parents have the right to teach children about sex according to their own beliefs, but there is a vast slew of children whose parents never speak to them about even reproduction (or who are in violent families or who have experienced familial sexual abuse) and who otherwise turn to the internet, peers or predators

If we don’t provide trusted and trained educators, adolescents will rely on untrustworthy sources, just as adults are listening to ill-informed voices disseminating "spurious" information.

A hands-off approach is no longer a sensible solution.